TV On The Radio
Nine Types of Light
TV on the Radio (Universal)
Now that hard-worn words such as "iconic," "arguably" and "awesome" have lost all meaning, I'd like to begin rehabilitating "nice" as a term of criticism. In many situations, "nice" seems like a cop-out word, used when you feel obliged to comment on your boss's new tie. But sometimes, "nice" does the job even when there's no social pressure. When every aspect of something is more or less okay, when there's nothing you can really object to, but also nothing to make it arguably awesome and iconic, "nice" begins to seem like an emotionally precise word.
This new album by TV on the Radio, for example, has many features that I might really like in another context. The Brooklyn band's lyrics are literate and thoughtful, but they can also be very direct. "May I illuminate the nameless, faceless saints of these odd and open graves?" sings Tunde Adebimpe in Second Song. Before you can say, "yes, polysyllabate them as much as you like," Adebimpe has moved on to something plainer: "I'll defend my love forever." Nothing odd about that: He'll always love you, just like Whitney Houston, but with more words and a cleverer arrangement.
Music critics like categories - and bands that dodge around them - and TV on the Radio is certainly good at that. Parts of this thing sounds like a rock record, though drummer Jaleel Bunton is usually too sly to give you a straight backbeat. Other bits slouch into mid-intensity funk. Second Song does both, coming out of a slightly churchified rock opening into a randier section, with Adebimpe singing falsetto from the yard-arm. But instead of making you think of real deep-dyed funk, he tweaks at latent memories of the Rolling Stones doing Emotional Rescue - a wittier move in this context.
And so it goes, as the band weaves between one tight sound and another, and between hard-bitten social commentary - "Beverly Hills, nuclear winter/What should we wear, and who's for dinner?" - and stuff that James Blunt can only wish he had written: "I'd love to collapse with you, and ease you against this song." The music is very skillfully made, doesn't lapse easily into formula, and takes some risks.
I like the way, in the thrumming midst of Killer Crane, Adebimpe introduces a new, angular, almost bebop-ish melody, doubled by some twangy thing that sounds like a banjo with a bit of DNA from a steel drum. I admire someone who can put such care into his lyrics, then drape them across a tune that roughs them up; or who can bliss out on a single word or syllable, because the music needs a vocal colour just then, not another synonym for joy. The band's arrangements follow a similar as-needed logic; in Second Song, after Adebimpe has slid through his catalogue of personal failings and grasped the firm rock of love, a sax choir rises up from nowhere and closes the song with a bristling affirmation of confidence.
But somehow, when I get to the end of this album, I don't feel like the sum of my experiences is as broad or as satisfying as it should be. My admiration for this band's craft and invention keeps running up against the fact that Nine Types of Light hasn't much engaged my emotional being. Minute by minute, there's almost always something interesting happening on this album , but ultimately, for me, it doesn't really deliver. It's not bad; some of it's quite good. In a word, it's a nice record - and I wish it were more.